{"id":342300,"date":"2025-09-05T00:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T00:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/342300\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T00:24:11","slug":"duke-going-all-in-on-football-amid-changing-college-sports-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/342300\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke going \u2018all-in\u2019 on football amid changing college sports landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Duke is going \u201call-in on football in a way it never has before,\u201d with the school \u201cheavily investing in trying to elevate\u201d the program, according to John Talty of CBSSPORTS.com. The \u201cflashpoint this offseason\u201d was landing Tulane QB Darian Mensah on a \u201crecord-setting deal believed to be worth\u201d $8M over two years. A \u201cbig swing for basketball wouldn\u2019t have raised an eyebrow, but Duke football paying top-of-the-market value shocked the college football world.\u201d Coming off a 9-4 season in 2024, Duke AD Nina King said that this offseason was the school \u201cshowing the world they were \u2018going for it.\u2019\u201d But Talty notes Duke has to \u201cbe creative in how it does so,\u201d as it \u201cdoesn\u2019t have a 100,000-seat football stadium delivering tens of millions in ticket sales revenue.\u201d Duke football \u201cmade about as much in total in 2023\u201d ($39.7M) as Alabama \u201cdid off football ticket revenue\u201d ($37.9M). Duke has \u201cpushed a donor base that has traditionally focused more on basketball spending to recognize the moment football has in front of it.\u201d King said that the message has \u201cresonated with Duke boosters and that the support has been \u2018incredible\u2019 from an investment and even fan attendance standpoint.\u201d Talty notes it is a \u201csimilar situation\u201d at other traditional basketball schools who have \u201crealized they have to spend bigger in football.\u201d With an estimated 75-80% of TV rights deals \u201ccoming from college football, if you want to secure a spot in the big leagues of college football,\u201d one \u201cmust be competent in football\u201d (CBSSPORTS.com, 9\/4<\/a>). <\/p>\n

DO OR DIE: THE ATHLETIC\u2019s Matt Baker writes this season \u201cfeels like an inflection point\u201d for an ACC \u201cin transition, if not trouble.\u201d The conference has added schools from California<\/a> and Texas<\/a> to \u201cboost its reach and revenue.\u201d It has resolved months of legal infighting<\/a> with \u201ctwo of its biggest brands in a settlement that, some argue, put an expiration date on the league.\u201d It also has \u201coverhauled its payout system<\/a> to address the revenue gap with the Big Ten and SEC that\u2019s expected to swell\u201d to $50M per school by 2036. All of these are \u201ctacit acknowledgments that, as much as the ACC\u2019s soul remains on the basketball courts of Tobacco Road, its future rests in major wins on the football field.\u201d Because the ACC \u201cdoesn\u2019t have the SEC\u2019s depth, the Big Ten\u2019s middle class or the Big 12\u2019s top-to-bottom parity, its football reputation rises and falls with its big-name programs\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 9\/4<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duke is going \u201call-in on football in a way it never has before,\u201d with the school \u201cheavily investing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[18234,331,7,41841],"class_list":{"0":"post-342300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-name-image-and-likeness"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115148847103589175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}